


Ghosts

by kylix



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Dialogue, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 20:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2163384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylix/pseuds/kylix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based around Episode 6. Marito had been the one to ask Humeray about his family, but he hadn't been paying enough attention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I've just been staring at this for a few days, so I decided I shouldn't just let it sit. I feel like I got to use a bit of what I learned my war literature class last year, though it was pretty insignificant. I like to imagine that Marito got a lot of his bad habits from Humeray.

John Humeray had been a hard drinker and a talker. Those two traits didn't generally mix well, but he'd been sentimental and a good soldier, and Marito had respected him for it. They'd been in the same boot camp but hadn't spoken until they'd found themselves both stationed on the backwater island of Tanegashima. Marito had been the reserved sort, but that only gave Humeray an audience for his ramblings. For a while, they'd been like brothers, close in a way that was only possible through war. At some point, he'd told Marito about his family. It was just him and his sister.

“Why'd you leave a little girl alone?”

They were in the barracks, playing cards, about three weeks after they'd arrived at the base. Coins, cigarettes, and various small objects lay in small piles on the floor. Humeray was on another one of his winning streaks. For such a loud guy, he had an incredible poker face. Marito was determined to win this round and had asked about his family, hoping that it'd distract him enough to make him slip.

“She ain't so little. And she's being looked after. I need to do something to get her through college.”

“Huh. So what's she like? You have a photo?”

Humeray laughed and shook his head. “Hey, I've seen the movies. No photos.” He tossed a few more coins into the pile in the middle of the floor.

“Then describe her.”

“Hmm,” he cocked his head and huffed out a breath. “She doesn't look much like me. Takes after our dad. Oh, but she's got a mole below her lip like I do.” Humeray pointed at his chin. “Same hair color, too. She's sort of... strict? Real sharp tongue, too.”

“Your twelve-year-old sister?”

“Yep.”

“Tough kid.”

“Maybe. But I'm all she's got, you know? Gotta take care of her.” At that point, Humeray pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket.

They both showed their cards and Marito muttered a curse. Humeray laughed as he gathered the cards back into a stack, raking in the piled up bets with an expert arm.

“Says she might want to join the military, too,” he said around his cigarette. He shuffled the deck without looking at it. “Sure hope I can avoid that.”

________________________

Captain Darzana Magbaredge was an imposing woman with a severe haircut and the ability to get even the burliest of soldiers to snap to attention without needing to raise her voice. When Marito had gotten to her ship, he was mostly glad to be out of combat with that monster of a Kataphract. He was even more relieved at having time for a drink.

There was something about her manner that he didn't like, the slight tension in her stance when he came near, the way she spoke a bit coldly to him. It might have been his imagination, but he'd seen soldiers in all states of stress. She didn't like him. He didn't like her much, either. Something in her face was familiar in a way that made him sad, and that pissed him off. But it didn't matter, anyway, and he treated her with professional courtesy and distance. It was how he'd survived in the military after seeing hell. With enough detachment and alcohol, he could handle anything.

The ship pulled into the bay at Tanegashima. Marito didn't think it'd changed much since fifteen years ago, but he'd been in a hurry to leave and hadn't bothered with more than a cursory glance goodbye. A lot of good men had died there. Most of them had been buried far away from there, but the island seemed to be stained with something. As he looked at the rocky cliffs and shining water, all he saw was wreckage.

The sun was setting, painting the water a pale yellow, like piss. Marito knelt on the deck of the carrier, a bottle of whiskey in front of him. John Humeray's dog tag was in his hand. It was heavy in his fingers. The island had been more or less circular when he'd first arrived. There'd been a peninsula on the south side where they'd docked, and he could see clearly in his mind the way the water sparkled when he and his fellow soldiers would bathe on the beach. He could also see the shrubbery ablaze, that monstrous Kataphract towering over them like a god.

“I never thought I'd come back here like this,” he muttered. He'd hoped he wouldn't come back at all. Most nights, his dreams were filled with fire and blood and screaming metal while he sat in a useless tank, a man's heavy body in his arms threatening to send him plunging through the earth. The rest of them, he couldn't sleep and drowned himself in alcohol only to find himself hungover with only twenty minutes to get to work.

He heard footsteps approaching him but didn't turn. He had an idea who it was. It was the doctor, come to nag him about his drinking habits. But the whiskey wasn't for him. At some point, Marito threw the bottle into the bay. It sparkled as it went down. Marito pulled his flask from his shirt pocket and invited Yagarai for one last drink before he quit for good, and that was when the captain came.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Captain Magbagredge.” Marito sighed inwardly, but she looked as twisted up as he felt and he couldn't say he did.

“The Tanegashima Report. I've heard rumors about it, of course.” Magbaregde took a dainty sip from the flask after Marito had taken a hearty chug. Marito could still feel the burn in his throat and didn't blame her. She held it in two hands as if it were a comforting drink.

Marito hadn't been paying attention to what the other two had been saying, leaning against a crate and staring at the deck by his shoes. He looked up when she mentioned the report. His throat went dry and he remained guarded.

“I never once believed it was a fabrication. That's why, Lieutenant Marito, I have a particular dislike for you.” Her voice became rough with anger but she didn't turn.

Marito looked up at her back. Her shoulders had tensed up and she was shaking just slightly. Marito turned away to shift his gaze to the island. He didn't want to hear what came next.

“The battle on Tanegashima... My big brother fought in it, too.”

His breath caught in his throat. He lowered his head as she continued.

“He was killed in action. Murdered, rather.” Her voice only wavered slightly. Marito had to strain to hear it. “By you. Magbaredge is the name of the family that adopted me. My birth name was Humeray. Your best friend was my brother.” She turned to him and the light behind her blocked out her face.

It hadn't been an important moment, that poker game, not important enough to keep in his mind. They'd been at Tanegashima for four months before any real combat happened. Even then, when Mars had first declared war, there had just been a few skirmishes. Their tanks, old and busted up even back then, had been enough. After it was over and Humeray had been buried, Marito had barely thought about him at all, except as a body, a ghost. He hadn't thought about that game of poker three weeks after his deployment, where he'd lost two packs of cigarettes, six bucks and a button, until that moment.

He'd had a sister. He'd been all she'd had.

What had he looked like? He glanced down at the dog tag still in his hand. He'd memorized the information on it years ago, but couldn't picture his face. He looked back up.

As the captain turned to him and her face darkened against the light of the sun, he could _see it_. The mole and the hair color, of course, but also the slope of her cheek, which he could barely see against her hair, the slant of her eyes, the shape of her mouth. For an instant he could see Humeray's face, clear as day, over her features. They moved the same way when they were angry, with a graceful tension that made Marito want to jump into a ditch. Something in her voice sounded just like her brother's.

He didn't want to meet her gaze, but something in her face, in Humeray's face, pulled his eyes to hers. He couldn't stop shaking.

And then a missile hit the carrier, and the whole ship started to shake. Marito cursed and ran back to the bridge, unsure if he was glad for the distraction. He figured there would be time to mourn later.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently Darzana is currently 27, meaning she was only 12 when her brother died, and if she was adopted into another family because of it, then her parents were either dead or unfit to take care of her. No wonder she holds a grudge. 
> 
> I'd had the whole scene with the sunset and the bottle throwing written out but decided to cut it so half the fic wouldn't be just dialogue from the episode''


End file.
